Babies and small children do not have the same digests system as older children and adults. They need more fat, they need a lower fibre diet.

Regardless of how many micronutrients are in a diet, if the baby cannot digest the diet, he or she will be malnourished very very quickly.

Please be very careful. Humans are omnivorous. We do not have a functioning appendix, we are not biologically evolved to be herbivores, and it is very very difficult for a small child to get his calorific needs met from a vegan diet.

I would suggest monthly blood tests to check for malnutrition.

Your point about a toddler restricting their own diet ins not valid. Toddlers tend to eat what they need, AS LONG AT IS AVAILABLE TO THEM, and with the right encouragement will de restrict their own diet naturally. A toddler being raised vegan does not have this option.

Also please bear in mind that if you are eating a vegan diet yourself and not supplementing, your breast milk will be deficient in vitamins and essential fatty acids because of your own restricted diet.

vegan diets may be healthier for adults because they are less fatty, have more fibre and because they are less dense you tend to eat less calories. This is not really an advantage for a baby, you will also have to have many more battles over food as the child will only get enough protein and iron for example if she eats the right combination of food, you won't be able to let her fill up on lentils if she does not fancy the spinach or the riceIf you have no moral objections to animal products why not give them to her until she is old enough to decide herself

colditz DS is dairy intolerant anyway, his body cant handle dairy which is in fact very common. So is really just missing out on meat. We are including fish in his diet and ours (perhaps should have said this earlier). Is absolutely thriving on it. What you say interests me as I obviously want to do the best for my baby, but honestly, I look at other babies he age and what they are eating and really feel that he is getting a better diet.

In reply to your specific points, he gets an optimal amount of fat from my breastmilk, this goes for calories too....

drwitch I understand what you are saying and am being very careful to make sure that DS gets enough fat. It s not a problem at the moment as he is only 9 months and so all of his nutritional needs are being met with breastmilk. We are lucky that he has not refused to eat ANYTHING yet, and has tried a really wide variety of foods, the only things e won't eat are dairy containing foods!

I don't want to give him animal products because of all the negative health issues surrounding them, it's as simple as that. If he doesn't need them why would I give them, especially when I believe they are harmful.

We are veggie, doing BLW. We make batches of patties and freeze them, so there's always a selection available, made with different pulses and veg. We use recipes from the BLW site and other places. Gilliam McKeith is good at packing nutrients in, dd likes a kidney bean and chickpea recipe of hers.

Vegan dad may be worth a look. His recipes aren't specifically for children, or not babies anyway but there might be some ideas. Similarly the ppk do great adult recipes which might offer scope for adaptation.

Calm down ladies. I introduced fish very recently, after this thread was started. Vegan is just a label which makes it easier to describe what I eat, yes eating fish is not vegan so technically I am no longer a vegan, but is there another way to describe what I am apart from saying I am vegan but eat fish? If so, I shall happily switch to saying that....does it really matter? The thread was about foods to use for a baby who is primarily vegan and has now had a bit of fish so maybe I should change the title just so it doesn't upset anyone too much as that seems to be the most important thing...FFS!

Nutritionally, there is a massive difference. People are annoyed because you have posted saying that a vegan diet is perfect - clearly it isn't, or you wouldn't be eating fish and feeding it to your baby. So people who actually use the word vegan properly will assume that you are not feeding your child any animal products or eating them yourself, hence my advice about blood screening and supplementation. Your complete misuse of the word "vegan" has (a) wasted my time and (b) is likely to give the wrong message to people who say they provide a vegan diet in schools, consisting of fish pie made with soya milk, and other pele of that ilk and (c) simply isn't correct.

It is impossible to be a vegan who eats fish as this statement is contradictory.

Yes, we can focus on the dietary advice, as i have above but you are being very naive not to understand that people get annoyed when you lie to them, especially when you do so in a way that suggests something they believe in strongly and have spent a lot of time thinking about is just some trivial badge of convenience. You are asking advice from vegans, so maybe showing them and their choice a little respect would be polite. (I'm not even cross, just explaining, while feeling surprised that its necessary).

We were vegan ......this thread was started on the 12th march.....I have recently introduced fish and so am apparently now a pescatarian. Fwiw, have only eaten fish on a few occasions and that is because of my worry about becoming a new vegan. If I had been a vegan for a long time I would certainly not be having a go at new vegans when they waiver or try to find out more about what they are doing. If you feel it's wasting your time...stop posting, I am not forcing you!

If not, and you have knowledge on this subject then I appreciate your time in helping me as I am still needing help from a nutritional perspective, but not in getting angry at me....as I said, look at the post times, I have not lied to anyone.

We are fully vegan (food wise) but we eat fish, that is really the best way I can describe it. However, we don't eat a lot of fish, DS has eaten it twice, maybe a few mouthfuls. So you see why it is still basically vegan, especially when it comes down to the point of this thread which was to find vegan finger foods.

No eggs, no honey, no meat, no dairy, no black pudding etc...! A very small amount of fish so far!

but if you don't know what you're doing, is it not a good idea to research that BEFORE weaning your baby onto a vegan diet? The potential for damage is really unacceptably high, to restrict a baby's diet before you know exactly what you're doing!

Colditz...do you know EXACTLY what you're doing? If so, I bow down to you, I have met a lot of people in my life but never one who knew exactly what they were doing. Most people have the sense to know that they can always learn things.

Of course I researched extensively, however, people change their minds, their actions, learn more, do better every day. People are not perfect (apart from you it sounds like)

Try not to be a jack ass about it. No, I don't know exactly what I am doing, nobody does, but it seems that I know way more about vegan nutrition and its appropriateness for babies than you do, despite NOT being a vegan, and NOT having a baby.

This should tell you that you know very little indeed about what you are doing wrt vegan nutrition for babies.